Wednesday of the Sixth Week in Ordinary Time
As I reflected on today’s first reading from St. James, Simon & Garfunkle’s epic song, The Sound of Silence came to me. Paul Simon offers a prophetic commentary on our society’s ability to listen – to listen to one another, to our inner wisdom, and to the cry of the poor. This songwriter invites us into the silence; the only space in which to truly listen. St. James calls us into this space, where listening transcends hearing and the Word is made flesh within us.
Hello darkness, my old friend
I've come to talk with you again
Because a vision softly creeping
Left its seeds while I was sleeping
And the vision that was planted in my brain
Still remains
Within the sound of silence
In restless dreams I walked alone
Narrow streets of cobblestone
'Neath the halo of a street lamp
I turned my collar to the cold and damp
When my eyes were stabbed by the flash of a neon light
That split the night
And touched the sound of silence
And in the naked light I saw
Ten thousand people, maybe more
People talking without speaking
People hearing without listening
People writing songs that voices never share
And no one dare
Disturb the sound of silence
"Fools" said I, "You do not know
Silence like a cancer grows
Hear my words that I might teach you
Take my arms that I might reach you"
But my words like silent raindrops fell
And echoed
In the wells of silence
And the people bowed and prayed
To the neon god they made
And the sign flashed out its warning
In the words that it was forming
And the sign said, "The words of the prophets
Are written on the subway walls
And tenement halls"
And whisper'd in the sounds of silence
People talking without speaking, People hearing without listening – that lyric rings so true in our day. We are bombarded daily with noise and external stimuli and a myriad of voices all clamoring for our attention and all drowning out any silence we might experience. The competing inputs become gods, as Paul Simon so rightly observed, and we bow daily before the altars of busyness and worldly distractions. The prophetic cries of the poor written on tenement halls fall on deaf ears.
An inability to listen has plagued us humans throughout all time. St Benedict of Nursia, 6th century Monastic, opened his Rule with these words, Listen carefully, my son, to the master’s instructions, and attend to them with the ear of your heart. Later in The Rule, St Benedict quotes from Psalm 38, I have put a guard on my mouth. I was silent and was humbled, and I refrained even from good words. He then exhorts his monks, Indeed, so important is silence that permission to speak should seldom be granted even to mature disciples, no matter how good or holy or constructive their talk . . . Speaking and teaching are the master’s task; the disciple is to be silent and listen. And that ancient wisdom brings us back to today’s first reading . . .
St. James admonishes us to be quick to hear, slow to speak, and to humbly welcome the word that has been planted in us. The Apostle calls us to be doers of the word, not hearers only. The necessary element to become doers of God’s Word is to truly listen. Sounds we hear may go in one ear and out the other. But when we silence ourselves and truly listen with humble hearts, then the Word is formed within us. Through the prophet Jeremiah, God promises, This is the covenant I will make with the people of Israel after that time, declares the Lord. I will put my law in their minds and write it on their hearts. I will be their God, and they will be my people (Jer. 31:33). If we merely hear the Word it may remain in our minds a short time, but if we truly listen and meditate upon it in silence, then it will become translated onto our hearts. Authentic doing, faithfulness to God’s Love, springs from what the heart has heard, not from an intellectual ascent to religious teaching.
I love the image St. James gives us of a mirror. He urges us to move from hearing to peering which leads to persevering. As you peer into God’s Word, what do you see mirrored in your life? As we approach God’s Word with a desire to truly listen with the ear of our heart, we hunger to peer intently into the scriptures as a spiritual discipline. As we become more formed by the Word, then a natural outflow of our discipleship is to love and serve according to the Word. It’s not enough to merely hear the Word and go through religious motions. In fact, James warns us that we may be easily deceived in that way. Disciples motivated by the indwelling Word will naturally have a deep concern for the ones most vulnerable and at risk in our society and seek ways to actively serve them. Doing must involve active care of the most vulnerable among us.
Today, we pray, God help us to cultivate a discipline of silence and out of that space give us the graces we need to hear, peer, and persevere in radically loving God and loving neighbor. Amen!
- Elizabeth Wourms